The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Musicians playing amplified guitars often utilize one or more small, electronic sound altering devices to change the natural sound of their instrument. These sound effect devices are commonly called effect pedals, and are typically designed to rest on the floor during use. This feature allows a musician to selectively activate each pedal using their foot, thereby leaving the user's hands free to play the instrument.
Guitar effect pedals were introduced in the late 1960's, and the prior art generally discusses that the effects able to be produced at this time are virtually unlimited. As such, skilled musicians will often utilize a plurality of different effect pedals when playing on stage or in a recording studio, for example.
In addition to the above, there are several known bypass loop systems (e.g., looper) which can be connected to multiple effect pedals in order to allow a musician to selectively control the operating status of the same via a single device. For example, a user can program the looper to activate a first group of effect pedals for one song, and to then activate a second group of effect pedals for a second song. Such a feature prevents the user from having to activate and deactivate each individual effect pedal between songs.
Owing to the analog switching components of traditional loop systems, it is necessary for the user to have physical access to the loop system in order to program the same. To this end, musicians will typically pre-program the loop systems to include a plurality of sound effect groups for each song they are about to play. Although this is fine when the musician only plays the anticipated songs in a particular order, a problem arises when the musician wants to spontaneously change the grouping. In such a situation, he or she must stop playing and physically program the loop system to include a new effect group, or have a sound engineer physically access the system to do the same.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a remotely operably bypass loop system that can be quickly and easily programmed via a wireless control system, and that does not suffer from the drawbacks of the devices described above.